Staff strikes threaten to postpone graduation

Pay negotiations have been going on for almost a year and have seen three full day strikes and two, two hour strikes take place as a result.

But worst could be yet to come with the possibility of a marking strike occurring which could delaying graduation for final year students.

“Since 2009, cumulative inflation has raised the cost of living by over 16%, in the same period our pay has increased by 3%, so our pay now is worth 13% less than it was in 2009 – that’s a lot of money.”

This, in a sentence, is the crux of the issue. Lecturers are demanding an above inflation pay rise to start to reimburse them for three years of lost pay.

But the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), which negotiate pay with UCU and other trade unions, are offering just 1%. Considering since 2009 inflation has not dropped below 3%, this means that for the fourth year in a row, lecturers are due to be subjected to a pay cut.

If the strike action itself doesn’t prove successful and the dispute is not resolved, John reveals the union has further plans which could bring much greater long-term significance to Bournemouth University (BU) students.

“UCU decided earlier in the dispute that it may need to escalate industrial action in order to push employers to start making sensible negotiations. Amongst those plans for escalation is an assessment boycott.

“An assessment boycott is a form of industrial action where our members would either refuse to mark any work, point blank, or what we did in 2006 was we marked the work, but we just wouldn’t hand the marks in so that they could be put on student records.

“That means in turn that the system by which students marks are recorded by the university cannot function. In the most extreme cases that means students would not be able to graduate.

“We very much hope that that won’t be necessary, none of this industrial action really needed to happen if the employers has sat down and made a sensible effort at negotiations last year.

“But at the moment the employers think they can get away with cutting our members pay for another year. They need to understand that they can’t get away with that, our members have had enough.”

During national discussions on pay, union negotiators are accountable to union members, (such as UCU), and UCEA negotiators are accountable to individual vice chancellors. The vice chancellor at BU is Professor John Vinney and he is one of the people who can press UCEA into returning to negations.

Professor Vinney has been in the spotlight recently when in January The Bournemouth Echo reported that he was the best paid public sector chief in Dorset.

The vice chancellor takes home a total pay package (including pensions etc) of £244,000 a year after being being awarded a 19% pay rise in 2013. In fact since John Vinney was appointed in 2010 his pay has increased by a total of 22%.

Mr Brissenden comments, “I don’t think, and nor does anyone I have spoken to think, that a 19% pay increase is in any way appropriate. Last month when our members were on strike the university was emailing all staff reminding them of the need to show restraint in their pay claims.

“Don’t talk to my members about restraint when you’re awarding a ridiculous pay increase like 19% to the vice chancellor. That’s an insult.”

But what has this got to do with students? And why should they care? John Brissenden explains, “I’m constantly surprised how many students do not know about this dispute. Students, by definition, are intelligent young people. You only need to tell them what I’ve just been telling you and they get it straight away.

“The reason why they should care is that low pay for staff is bad for universities and it’s bad for students. A successful organisation is one that is able to recruit and retain the best staff. How are you going to do that if you keep cutting their pay?

“So it affects both the quality of teaching the students receive and the reputation of the university itself. In five years’ time you might suddenly find that Bournemouth on your CV doesn’t open the kind of doors that it once did.”

John has a clear message for BU students, “If students feel angry about losing contact hours to strike action, I’m right with them. If I could write a cheque to sort this all out, I would have done it long ago.

“I can’t do that, only vice chancellors can do that by saying to UCEA, we want you to go back to the negotiating table with the unions and sort this out. They are not saying that.

“When vice chancellors say they are unhappy about these strikes and are very concerned about the effect they have on our students’ university experience, they are lying, it is as simple as that.

“If they cared about students who are paying these exorbitant fees, which I and other members of UCU fought shoulder to shoulder with students to oppose back in 2010, they would be on the phone to UCEA by now.

“So the responsibility for any disruption caused by this industrial action lies with the vice chancellor. It is him that students should complain to.”

So how can students get involved? John outlines two possible ways. “One way is to take part in the student vote which the Student Union is running and vote for SUBU to support striking staff.

“At the moment SUBU is officially natural on this but if students vote for that they can make SUBU adopt a position officially out in support of striking staff.

“That in itself will place great pressure on the vice chancellor to go to UCEA and say it is time to sort this out.”

Students can vote here, voting closes at 5pm on Friday 14^th February.

“The second way is they can write to vice chancellor John Vinney directly at [email protected].

“They can say they are very concerned about the continuing pay dispute and they would like him to use his influence on UCEA to push them back to the negotiating table so that this dispute, which has its roots as long ago as last March, can finally be resolved before industrial action starts to bite harder than it already has.”

Callum Sharpin, a final year Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences student said, “The fact that final year students could lose out on interviews and jobs because their assessments haven’t been marked due to a pay dispute seems ridiculous, particularly when universities are making so much money.”

Tim, the parent of a fourth year BU student said, “A course providing only five contact hours and no timely assessment of my son’s work certainly doesn’t count as ‘full-time’.

“If John Vinney can justify a salary package worth almost a quarter of a million pounds a year, I’m sure he’ll be able to resolve this matter, so that the teaching staff are properly compensated and the university provides the parents and students with the service they’ve paid for.”

What is your view? Should SUBU be supporting striker lecturers? Should students be reimbursed for lecture time lost due to strikes? Have your say in the comments below.